I'm back with a new chapter and it's time for some Auntie Riza! :D
Chapter fifty-six
Riza was worried as she got inside the car, Ed still trembling, pushing himself into her chest as she moved to place him on the seat next to her. "N-no!" he exclaimed. "P-please!"
And so she just put her arms around him instead, to which he flinched, but then buried himself in the embrace. Riza found she didn't care much that she was getting ice cream on her uniform. She had never seen Ed as frightened as this, so shaken and trembling with fear. It was heartbreaking, especially when thinking that this had once been her colleague. This had been the Fullmetal Alchemist.
And this was what had happened to him.
Even after two months, her anger with the Pentons hadn't subsided at all. It never would. In fact it had even grown now, which she wouldn't have thought possible hadn't it been for the trembling child on her lap.
"It's okay, Ed, if you want to sit on my lap, you can," she told him softly. "Are you ready to go?"
Ed just nodded once into her chest, and so she gently started up the car, to which Ed winced slightly at the noise and pressed himself even further into her.
He spent the entire drive over to the Hugheses pressed against her like that, whimpering at any loud noises they heard. The Colonel was very right that they needed to get Ed somewhere that he felt safe as soon as possible.
Ed had finished his ice cream by the time they pulled up outside the Hughes house. "Okay, Ed, do you want to stay here in the car while I fetch Rolf or do you—" She didn't get any further before Ed had thrown his arms around her neck, his small legs clamped around her waist.
And so she stepped out of the car, holding him securely in her arms, more as a precaution than a necessity with the way Ed clung to her. Although mostly it was just to hug the small child who certainly needed his Auntie to hold him right now.
She knocked on the door, hearing familiar barks from inside the house, to which Ed at first flinched, but then relaxed slightly with recognition.
The door was opened and Elicia stood there with a big and happy smile at her early visitors. "Big Brother! You came early!"
Ed began sobbing, leaving Elicia highly confused and upset, but Gracia thankfully came to their rescue and picked up a (now crying herself) Elicia into her arms, looking at her and Ed worriedly. "Lieutenant, what's wrong?"
"He's crying, Mommy, and he won't say why!" Elicia cried miserably.
Ed just sobbed louder, holding onto Riza even tighter.
Gracia stood back, letting them inside from the torrential rain, telling Elicia that it was all right, knowing from Riza's look that Elicia was better off not knowing what was going on.
"Ed's having a bad day and needed his puppy," Riza said kindly. "We're going to his grandma's, we just needed to fetch Rolf first. I'm sorry it's such a short visit."
Gracia looked very sad and bit heartbroken at Ed's behaviour, but she smiled bravely all the same. "Of course, Lieutenant Hawkeye," she said. "We'll go get his things right away," she said, leaving for the kitchen.
Rolf was standing by Riza's feet, him too looking worried at Ed's behaviour.
Ed's sobbing died down a bit after a minute, just in time for Gracia to return with all of Rolf's equipment stuffed inside his travelling cage that also worked as a very comfortable bed, while Elicia was tottering forwards with a wicker basket covered by a large piece of chequered cloth. "Hafta help cheer Big Brother up!" Elicia announced, Gracia smiling, and so all of them walked out into the car, Rolf obediently walking next to Riza before jumping into the car, seating himself on the passenger side next to them as Gracia and Elicia loaded the other things inside the backseat.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hughes," Riza said, before looking down at Elicia who still seemed highly worried at Ed's behaviour. "And you too, Elicia. We'll try to come visiting you again soon. Thank you for looking after Rolf for us and for the cheering up present."
"Hope your bad day turns good soon, Big Brother," Elicia said miserably before Gracia picked her up and went back inside the house, standing in the doorway to wave them off.
It was ten minutes later that they arrived at the bar, and Riza parked the car next to the one she recognised to belong to Madame Christmas. "Here we are, Ed," she said, Ed was still clinging to her neck, Rolf having rested his chin on Ed's right leg where it was curled around Riza's waist.
Ed just made a little "m," in response to the statement, and Riza moved to open the door, just as Madame Christmas herself came walking towards them, looking disapprovingly at the way Ed was still clinging to Riza, but out of concern at Ed's behaviour, not because she thought they were doing something wrong. "Here's your Grandma, Ed," Riza told him, as she opened the door, to which Ed finally disentangled himself slightly in order to look up at his adoptive grandmother.
"G-Grandma?" Ed asked croakily, sniffing loudly on a lot of snot that definitely needed to be emptied into a Kleenex.
"That's right, kiddo. Now there's a warm bath waiting for you upstairs with a five-piece set of zoological animals that are very interested in meeting you and hearing what you will name them," she told him gruffly, but smiling slightly. "So how about you and Auntie Riza do that while I make sure to bring the rest of your things back inside?"
Ed's lips were trembling. "Th-thank you, G-Grandma. Can Rolf come too? He's n-not gonna jump i-into the tub."
"Of course, Ed. And there are clean and warm clothes waiting upstairs for both of you, I found a box of your father's old ones in the attic."
Riza nodded gratefully at her, guessing that whatever she would be borrowing for herself would be either a disguise or something else that belonged to one of the waitresses. Either way, Riza wouldn't say no thanks to some warm clothes instead of soaked wool stained with ice cream, snot and dog drool.
Ed leaned back and hugged Rolf around the neck as the puppy instantly used the opportunity to try to cheer him up and thereby jumped up between Ed and Riza, placing his front paws on Ed's shoulders.
Which meant that Riza ended up walking through the back door of a hostess bar, carrying a small child and a puppy to her chest.
But at least distraction tactics seemed to do the trick for Ed now that he was in a safe environment and he didn't have to meet anyone else than his Auntie and his Grandma and his puppy. So Riza soon found herself walking inside the bathroom, discovering the contents of the tub filled over the brim with foam and with five small rubber animals lined up on the edge of the tub. There was a giraffe, a hippo, a lion, a zebra and an elephant, all of them fat and friendly-looking with cute smiles and large eyes.
Ed sniffled again. "Th-those are n-nice," he said tearfully.
"Is it okay if I put you down now, Ed?" Riza asked kindly.
Ed seemed torn. "P-promise you'll stay?" he asked, looking up at Riza with wide, scared eyes, red from tears.
"Of course, Ed," Riza said.
"Then you can p-put me d-down now a-and I'll turn my back so you can change, A-Auntie."
Riza felt a sort of warm terror at the prospect. She had never played with Ed before while Ed was in the tub, that was always something that he did with his father. For some reason, it brought it home to her that she had actually become Ed's Auntie and was being treated as such.
Well, she wasn't about to crush this boy's current rising happiness after what had just happened, and so she smiled and put Ed down, and Ed dutifully turned his back on her, hugging and petting Rolf as she changed into a singlet and a pair of skinny jeans that had been laid out for her next to a maroon fleece jumpsuit for Ed. Riza smiled slightly to herself at the thought of a little Roy Mustang walking around in it. She had seen that there was actually a second pair of skinny jeans for her under a blue-and-green-chequered blouse and a white t-shirt. She had a feeling that it was because her first change of clothes would probably get wet from helping Ed bathe, and so she decided that there was no point in wearing socks either until after Ed's bath. She folded her uniform neatly and turned towards Ed, smiling. "So, Ed, let's get you into that tub, shall we?" she said, walking up in front of him and gently helping him out of his clothes, before lifting him under the armpits as Rolf stood back, and she gently placed him inside the warm water. "There, Edward, how's that?"
Ed gave her a weak smile and a small nod.
"Then let's just blow your nose and then we can name these five new friends of yours."
When the library was about to close, Roy walked through to the exit together with Alphonse, only to find a woman looking at him sourly the second she spotted Roy, and she crossed her arms, glaring. "You! So you've been hiding here until closing time, is that it?! Hiding behind your rank?! Using it to scare people away?" she demanded, striding forwards, her brown curls bobbing up and down on her shoulders, her light pink sweater too tight over her slightly wobbling stomach. She wasn't fat per se, she was just a bit overweight, and her dark blue trousers appeared to be digging into her stomach a bit too much, judging by the way it curved unnaturally under the sweater.
Basically, she was the type of woman who was "always right", contrary to the evidence.
And right now she had a very strong opinion and was jabbing him in the chest with her right index finger. "Well, I'm going to tell you, mister, I'm not scared of you!" she declared. "You know, my sister works for child protective services and I will make sure that she hears about this! And from a military officer no less!"
Roy found himself so pissed off with her that he'd let her finish, only to make her eat her own words and knock her down a peg or two, but preferably five.
"So who was it that hurt him? You've got that single father look, so I guess that means an ex-wife? You soldiers with all your violent lives aren't too bothered by a bit of domestic violence until it goes too far, are you? What did she do then? Break his arm? Push him down the stairs? And I bet you only watched her as she did it too, didn't you? That's why he was so scared at first. You let her hurt him, didn't you? And then you felt guilty so you divorced her and now he's so scared that she'll come and take him, so he's settled with you, is that it?! He's too scared that both his parents will leave him because he still loves you and doesn't know any better?! You're disgusting, taking advantage of an innocent child's love like that!"
Roy was about to interrupt her in his fury for saying something so disrespectful about Trisha Elric and right in front of Alphonse no less, but this cow wasn't done with Roy and wouldn't let him speak.
"And just where is that poor boy now, huh?! You just disposed of him once he'd stopped crying?! You just abandoned him when he needed his Daddy the most?! You're the scum of the earth!" she said furiously, and then she slapped him, glaring at him.
When she moved to slap him again, Roy grabbed her wrist, doing everything he could to keep himself from holding her wrist any tighter than necessary. "You listen here, you self-righteous bitch," Roy hissed at her. "First of all, I have grounds to have you arrested and given a sentence for at least ten years in prison for hitting a State Alchemist and causing harm to my boy whom I just happen to have been assigned by the Führer himself to guard because he was kidnapped two months ago by a couple of torturers who used alchemy to turn the Fullmetal Alchemist back into a five-year-old and thereby stealing the past ten years of his life from him, including the memories of his mother's death who was also one of the kindest and warmhearted mothers you could ever imagine. Secondly, I want you to apologise to my other son right this fucking instant for saying those things about his mother when he's standing less than a metre away from you!" Roy growled. "And before you ask, what I mean by you causing harm to my boy is that you, with all your delusions of superiority and knowledge about children, failed to do the one thing he told you to, namely leaving him the hell alone instead of multiplying his fear tenfold because he spent four days in that form, being tortured and hugged by a couple of maniacs who were calling themselves his parents and leaving him terrified of strangers touching him or cornering him in that way, which is why, as I had to act on the orders of the Führer no less and stay here, I sent him, with his other bodyguard who happens to be his honorary aunt, to his grandmother's as he felt safer there after you and the rest of you clueless bastards have now succeeded in making him go from sceptic to terrified of strangers, crowds and large buildings because you couldn't listen to him! And before you say anything else stupid, the reason he managed to run off like that was because our hands were full of important military documents and so those other concerned idiots like yourself kept me from reaching him for a good ten minutes! So now I suggest you get off that high horse of yours, beg my son here for forgiveness and get the hell out of our way so that we can get back to him!" Roy finished, glaring as he released her wrist.
The woman apologised to Alphonse and ran off in tears and Roy didn't feel bad about it at all, especially as the code had turned out to be ridiculously hard to crack and so they would probably need to spend days in here separated from him while Ed needed them the most, but would get even worse if they prioritised him because of his stubborn selflessness.
And please keep the reviews coming! And I swear that there will be a lot more Auntie Riza in the upcoming chapters, so I hope you'll like it! :D
